{"id":290,"date":"2010-04-29T00:37:16","date_gmt":"2010-04-29T07:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chadtown.casaroberts.com\/?p=290"},"modified":"2010-04-29T00:37:16","modified_gmt":"2010-04-29T07:37:16","slug":"mount-sinaist-catherines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chadtown.casaroberts.com\/?p=290","title":{"rendered":"Mount Sinai\/St. Catherine’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a day that started at 11pm the previous evening, we managed to cram in a whole of activity, so pardon the long post while I try and cover it all. It begins outside of the office of the travel agent where we book the excursion to Mount Sinai, where we are to be picked up by the bus for the two-hour drive. At around 11:30 the driver finally shows up (sure glad I could spend the extra 30 minutes sitting on a bench instead of sleeping in my hotel room) in the van.
\n\"sinai1\"\"sinai3\"\"sinai4\"
\nAfter our experience in Abu Simbel, we are hopeful that fewer tourists will mean a bit more room to stretch out in the bus and get some sleep, and with only one other couple waiting with us, optimism is high. As the van pulls up, we see it is already close to full (I swear they must have a lot somewhere with vans of all different sizes and they take the smallest one that can hold all the people to save on gas). There are no fold down jump seats like the Abu Simbel bus, but the rows are MUCH closer together so I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sit straight, and instead ride side saddle with my knees pointed out towards the door (which probably is for the best as with three people in the seat, there is only room for one cheek). Now on any other day, two hours wedged into a minibus after midnight would be fun enough in its own right, but today we have the extra bonus of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153camel butt\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

Traffic is fairly light, and with the exception of the occasional minibus half-full of people comfortably sleeping that we pass there is nothing but the desert. This quickly changes when we pull into the parking lot, which is full of tour busses, minivans, and hundreds of tourists milling about waiting to start their climb. In my head, I had pictured a quiet climb with our small group and guide instead of a miles long parade up the mountain, so it takes me a few minutes to readjust my mindset, by which time we have fallen into line and are headed upward.<\/p>\n

As we begin, our guide (in one of his only moments of providing useful information) tells us the trail is 7 kilometers long, ending at the bottom of 750 steps that will take us to the top of the 7,500 foot mountain. Thinking how much I would have appreciated knowing this interesting nugget about 24 hours ago before we booked this trip, I look around and wonder how some of these people are going to make it (and if they do, how depressing it will be if I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t).<\/p>\n

The answer to that becomes clear a few hundred yards in as we see the first of what will seem like hundreds of people offering to help get you to the top of the mountain on yes, the back of a camel (for a small fee of course). Still sore from our last ride, and recalling vividly the extra pleasure of going uphill and downhill, we opt to grind it out on foot, but there are plenty of willing takers to keep the wheels of commerce turning.<\/p>\n

In a few places, the path the camels take and the path for people diverge, by mostly they are one and the same. This of course means there are all kinds of camel turds to step in, as well as some great views when you get stuck behind one \u00e2\u20ac\u201c two more great reasons to make this climb in the dark.<\/p>\n

A bit after 4:30, we finally make it to the top. During the climb, we managed to make up a lot of ground on people that started before us, so we get there before the crowds and are able to find a pretty good place to sit down on the rocks and wait for the sunrise. Ang claims she has seen one before (it would have to have been before we met), but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not convinced, and am interested to see what she thinks. We took a bunch of pictures of course, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really the kind of thing that only works in person.
\n\"sinai5\"\"sinai5\"
\nThere is a small monastery at the top of the mountain, so with the sun up, we take some time to look around and take a few pictures while the bulk of the crowd starts to make their way down the steps. As the traffic starts to clear, we make our way down to the first rest stop (little huts they have at different points on the mountain to buy overpriced water and such), where our \u00e2\u20ac\u0153guide\u00e2\u20ac\u009d tells us to wait for the rest of our group to catch up. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not a particularly good waiter, and every minute we spend sitting around is just one minute more to get hotter, so I cajole Ang to rebel against the man and we take off on our own.<\/p>\n

About a quarter of the way down, the path splits, with one way being the path we took up, and the other being shorter, but comprised of 2,500 more steps. Just as we are about to make our choice and continue on, our guide comes running down the trail screaming at us for leaving the group, and that we shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be on our own. The concern seems a little hollow since on the way up, our group was quite spread out from the leaders to the stragglers, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing the real concern is that we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get off the mountain without the opportunity to pay him a tip. Either way, we convince him we are capable of following the dozens of other people already walking down the trail and agree to meet him outside of the monastery at the bottom.<\/p>\n

St. Catherine\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s is purportedly one of the oldest working monasteries in the world, built in 527 on the site where Moses saw the burning bush. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know much about it other than what we read in our travel book, and it turns out our guide is of little help as he rambles on about some of the things inside and then tells us to go look and meet him under a shady tree when we are done. So not really knowing what we are looking at, we try and get some pictures that we can use as references when we get back to the hotel and can read more on the Internet.<\/p>\n

Of the things we are able to piece together, there is a bush in a small courtyard that is supposed to be the original burning bush, the Well of Moses, which supplies the monastery with water, and according to legend, never goes dry, and a finger bone from St. Catherine herself. Not knowing in advance about the finger, Ang (with years of medical training at her disposal) wonders why people are bowing down in front of a drumstick.
\n\"monastery2\"\"monastery1\"
\nFinished with the sights, I fold myself up like an accordion and hop back into the van for the two hour ride back to Dahab, now with my butt sore from riding a camel AND my legs stiffening up for more exercise than I normally get in a month. Finally arriving back at the hotel around 1pm, we turn the lights out, air conditioning up, and head directly to bed.<\/p>\n

But wait, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

After a few hours of shut-eye, we motivate ourselves onto the shuttle to go into town for dinner. We decide to go a little nuts, and splurge on a big platter of grilled snapper, calamari and king prawns. For around $40, there is enough for 3 or 4 people, but we put a pretty good dent in it before admitting defeat. It is a great night, so with some time to kill, we wander along the waterfront a while before heading back to catch our ride to the hotel.<\/p>\n

When we get to the shuttle pick up, the van is about half full, but the driver waves us into the front seat anyway, which we figure is a good thing since it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t as cramped as the seats in the back. I zone out a bit looking at the mountains in the moonlight, so don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t notice for a while that we seem to be taking a longer route back than normal and that we are driving quite a bit slower.<\/p>\n

An elbow in the ribs brings me back to attention, and I give Ang a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153what you doing pushing me into the door?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d look. She gives me a strange look and then points toward the driver with her eyes. I am slow putting it all together, but I finally realize that the driver (who I have now taken to calling Chester) has his elbows up at chest height (Ang\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in particular), and is shifting gears an awful lot, picking up some incidental contact in the process.<\/p>\n

After contemplating for a few moments whether the laugh I will get out of it is worth holding my ground, I shift sideways to give Ang some more room to move towards me. Ever the innovator, Chester turns his attention to a little leg work, by holding his hand as far to the right of the gearshift as possible. By the time we pull up to the hotel, our driver has rounded second and is hoping to stretch things out for a triple.<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s little that can top what just transpired, so we decide to end the evening on a high note and get a full night\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a day that started at 11pm the previous evening, we managed to cram in a whole of activity, so pardon the long post while I try and cover it all. It begins outside of the office of the travel agent where we book the excursion to Mount Sinai, where we are to be picked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egypt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chadtown.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chadtown.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chadtown.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chadtown.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chadtown.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chadtown.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":305,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chadtown.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions\/305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chadtown.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chadtown.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chadtown.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}